Obama enrages Israel on way out of the door

Israeli officials are furious with President Obama for allowing the U.N. to pass a resolution Friday demanding the Jewish state “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

With the U.S. taking the extraordinary move of abstaining, the Security Council unanimously passed the resolution, which also calls for the limiting of the Jewish state to the borders it had before the 1967 war.

The resolution declares the Israeli settlement policy has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”

Critics say the move effectively strips Israel of any bargaining power in any future peace negotiations by forcing the state to forfeit its biggest bargaining chip.

The resolution was approved 14 to 0, with the United States abstaining. To pass, a U.N. resolution requires approval by 9 out of 15 members of the Security Council, and no vetoes by any of the 5 permanent members, including the U.S.

By not using the United States’ veto to prevent it from coming up for a vote, Obama effectively endorsed the resolution. As Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz put it, “an abstention is a vote for the resolution.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement that said, “Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. and will not abide by its terms.”

“At a time when the Security Council does nothing to stop the slaughter of half a million people in Syria, it disgracefully gangs up on the one true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and calls the Western Wall ‘occupied territory.’”

Netanyahu said Obama’s administration “not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the U.N., it colluded with it behind the scenes.”

The Israeli leader added, “Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”

After the resolution passed, President-elect Trump tweeted, “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.”

Republicans responded to the resolution by threatening to cut off funding for the U.N.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in a statement, “[T]he consequences of this disgraceful U.N. resolution should be severe. I look forward to working with Sen. Graham, and with the incoming Administration of President-elect Trump, to significantly reduce or even eliminate U.S. funding of the United Nations, and also to seriously reconsider financial support for the nations that supported this resolution.”

He added, “For eight long years, the Obama administration has worked systematically to undermine the nation of Israel. They actively worked to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu, and illegally used U.S. taxpayer funds to do so. Never has there been a more anti-Israel Administration, and today’s United Nations vote is the culmination of their systemic agenda to weaken Israel and strengthen its enemies.”

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